


If We Can Make it Through the Storm

by Erica_T



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Breakfast, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erica_T/pseuds/Erica_T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Concerned, Natasha visits Steve at home.  And discovers that she's losing her touch, a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If We Can Make it Through the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This had started out as a ‘morning after’ from Steve/Darcy’s point of view, but as I wrote it, I decided that I liked it better being from Natasha’s point of view.
> 
> Readers may recognize this as Chapter 2 of 'Meet Me in the Aftermath'. You would be correct, though I have tweaked it a little. 
> 
> I decided to split the Chapters into a series. I had wrestled with making it a separate story or a chapter continuation when I originally posted, and went with the chapter after hemming and hawing, and in the end I wasn't happy with the feel of 'Aftermath' after I'd added the chapter. It feels like it works a little better like this.

Natasha Romanov was not a woman given to emotions. It was something that had been ingrained into her training. To care was to admit weakness, and weakness led to exploitation. Even after her defection to SHIELD, she had kept herself apart from her fellows purposefully. It was only in the last years that she had begun to allow herself to feel things, and it had crept up on her unexpectedly, when she wasn't looking for it. Her reaction to Clint being compromised during the business with Loki had shown her exactly how much she had changed. 

This thing with Steve and James Barnes; Bucky, as he called him, it had rattled her. She had known the Winter Soldier as a dangerous, conflicted man. Steve looked at him and only saw the friend he’d lost. It was going to take a lot of work to get that man back again. If it was even possible. They weren't entirely sure that it was. 

Steve had left headquarters without saying much of anything, and she hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days. This wasn’t unusual per se, they had become friends since New York, but it wasn't like they spoke to each other on a day to day basis. Something about this silence concerned her, however. 

This was why she found herself standing at the door to his apartment on a Saturday morning; waiting for him to open up.

She knew that he was in there, because she could hear strains of something orchestral playing inside, and Steve was not the kind of person to leave his radio on when he left the house.  
Almost the moment she thought it, the door opened and Steve was standing in front of her with a frown on his face, shirtless and barefoot. Unfazed, she raised an eyebrow at him.

“Hey.” She said to him as she waltzed past him and into his apartment, without waiting for an invite. He was clearly in the middle of making breakfast, there were a large number of pancakes on a warmer and more batter in a bowl next to a hot pan.

“Hey.” He answered back, closing the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not allowed to check up on a friend?”

"You never make house calls, Nat, what are you doing here?" She leaned against his counter, watching him as he went back to his pancakes.

"Steve, I know that this was all very hard, but you don't have to deal with it alone in your apartment."

Steve looked at her over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, while somewhere in the apartment, a shower that she hadn't noticed before turned off, and moments later, Darcy Lewis wandered in wearing a only a robe and kissed Steve on the cheek with a loud and almost overexaggerated smack.

"Hey Natasha."

It occurred to Natasha, in that moment, that it had been a very long time since anyone had completely and utterly surprised her.

Darcy helped herself to the pot of coffee waiting on the counter, clearly at home in Steve’s kitchen.

“Coffee?” She asked, waggling the pot at her. Natasha blinked.

“Please.”

“Steve has mastered the art of the coffee maker, he makes awesome coffee, you will not be disappointed. Breakfast? Again, Steve is a pancake master, and he makes enough to feed an army. Or, you know, him and Thor after they've been on a mission.”

Natasha caught the younger woman hiding a smile behind the act of taking a sip from her mug, and tried to imagine what her face looked like right now. It probably was pretty funny. She found herself considering the young woman from behind her own cup of coffee. She had met Jane Foster’s former intern a number of times. She was a capable analyst, she had the potential to be the next Phil Coulson if she played her cards right, and if it was what she wanted. Natasha knew enough about how she had come to be in SHIELD’s employ to know that it might not have been the first choice of careers on her list. However, when she tried to think of times when Steve might have crossed her path, she couldn't come up with anything. How long had this been going on? This was obviously not the first time that she had been in Steve’s apartment, they moved together in his kitchen far too well.

She cast her eye around the apartment then, taking in some changes since the last time she had been inside, changes that she should have noticed on her entrance, if she had been paying attention to more than just Steve. She must be slipping. 

A coloured throw blanket slung across Steve’s utilitarian sofa. An ipod dock was sitting in his stereo system, playing away. There were a few pieces of artwork on the walls that she knew Steve would never have bought himself. The mugs that she and Darcy were drinking from were the kind of mug only a woman would own. Obviously, she had moved in with him. And she had been here long enough that they had integrated their belongings. This was fascinating.

“Too busy, huh?” She voiced, recalling his explanation not so long ago. Steve flipped off the stove and pulled plates out of the cupboards.

“Yep.” Was all he said.

“I’m very demanding.” Darcy supplied, opening a drawer and pulling out knives and forks. “He hardly has any time to himself.”

“Aha. And how long as this been going on?”

Darcy snorted.

“You make it sound like we’re carrying on some kind of illicit affair.”

“Considering no one else knows about this, you might as well be. How long?”

Steve shrugged.

“A year.”

“Almost to the day, actually.”

“A year. That's pretty significant. Why didn't you tell anyone?”

They both sat, and seemed to have an entire conversation with their eyes. This was something that Natasha was familiar with, it was the sort of thing that only came from being completely comfortable with your partner. She had experienced it only twice, once with the man Steve knew as Bucky Barnes, and with Clint Barton. 

 

"It was safer if no one knew. For both of us." Steve said. 

 

Natasha considered this. It was a fair point. Captain America's girlfriend would be a prime target. Steve would want to make sure that nothing happened to her, simply because she chose to become involved with him. And Darcy was smart, she would know this. She may be an agent, but she was still junior, she wasn't trained enough to be able to fend off a well coordinated attempt on her person, no matter how good she was with a taser. 

 

"It was a good call. So why are you letting it out now?" She asked. Darcy could easily have stayed hidden in the bathroom, or the bedroom. There had been no need to come out into the main area at all, unless they had a plan. 

Steve raised his eyebrows at Darcy, who quirked one at him and nodded in her direction, before smiling serenely at him. 

"Darcy's pregnant." He said, eyes still on hers. 

Natasha felt her eyebrows skyrocket. The was the second surprise of the day, what was happening to the universe? Darcy's smile widened, and she started piling pancakes onto her plate.

"Congratulations." She said, her tone so dry it could have turned to dust and blown away. The reaction to it was immediate. Darcy stiffened and looked away from Steve, who turned his eyes on her, giving her a look that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

"Hm. Thanks. It's still early days yet, but I have a good feeling that junior is sticking around." It was said lightly, but Natasha could sense discomfort coming off her in waves. Steve ran a hand down her arm gently, and tangled his fingers in hers, without taking his eyes off Natasha. It was a gesture to soothe, and if she wasn't already aware that she was making them uncomfortable, she would know now. She relaxed her posture and offered a smile.

"I apologize for my attitude. But you must understand, this is quite a development." 

"We know." Steve said. Darcy squeezed his hand tighter. 

"We know perfectly well that there will be a lot of people really interested in this kid when it all shakes loose. So...he or she is going to need all the protection that we can give them." She said, looking to Steve again. He agreed with a nod, looking back at her with such a gentle expression on his face that it made her smile. 

"We'd never ask anything of you, Nat. But we would appreciate it if you would just...be here for this, when you can." 

Natasha blinked. No one had ever been close enough to her to ask her something like this. It was...nice. Terrifying, but nice. She looked between them, and nodded. 

"I count you as a friend, Steve. I'll be here to do anything that I can." 

Darcy smiled at her, a grin as wide and mischievious as there ever was one. 

"Thank you. That means a lot to us. But can you do me just one favour? Please stop trying to set him with women from the office?" 

Natasha laughed and tucked into her pancakes. 

"I think I can manage that."


End file.
